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This is a huge month on so many levels, with the first exact hit of the Uranus/Pluto square on June the 24th. We also have a partial lunar eclipse on the 4th, immediately followed by the twice in a lifetime transit of Venus across the Sun on the 6th, and the great Jupiter going into Gemini for the next 12 months, starting on the 12th.

With the imperative for radical and deep change peaking with the first, and lengthy Uranus/Pluto square, basically anything could happen and it would be too easy to start catastrophising about its global possibilities. There is obviously no lack of the proverbial flying politically and economically and some of our major systems are clearly wobbly, as they must be as part of the necessary challenges of deep change.

On a more personal level astrologically, the houses in our charts which have the early stages of Aries and Capricorn (8 degrees, 24 minutes to be exact) are getting the strongest demands for change, followed by the signs and houses ruled by Pluto and Uranus, Scorpio and Aquarius. Any planet or asteroid at 6 to 10 degrees of any sign will get aspects from both, as well as from Chiron in Pisces, so these are also hot spots for change.

Both Pluto and Uranus are transpersonal and ruthless energies beyond the emotional consequences of their actions, which is why it is so important to take good care of ourselves and our loved ones at these critical times in human evolution. Everyone is under a great deal of collective stress on top of our personal processes and part of the challenge of this transformation is to not fall back on overriding, masculinising, tough-it-out approaches that deny our need for care, nurturing, reassurance and rest.

And there is something about the Venus transit that shines and magnifies the need to stay in our hearts, to heal, to face the shadows that limit our capacity for love in all its forms.

Venus crossing the Sun isn't as visually impressive as a normal eclipse, as it appears as a dot travelling across the Sun's face in the course of the day, Venus seemingly sliding backwards against the Sun's forward movement. Rarely do you get such a visual demonstration of retrograde motion but even rarer is this particular transit, as it occurs in pairs eight years apart every 120 years. If you were born in the year 1900 you would never have seen it. This one is the second in a pair, the first being in 2004.

It has particular historical and contemporary significance for Australia, as it was one of the reasons that Captain Cook was in the Pacific in 1769, to view the passage of Venus over the Sun from Tahiti. This time around, Australia is one of the best places to view it, two thirds of the continent getting to see the whole transit through the course of the day. Everyone east of a line from Broome to Ceduna will get the whole show; everyone west can see it at sunrise.

Symbolically, the lunar eclipse is partly overshadowed by the significance of the Venus transit, but the two are intertwined by both their close proximity and by the fact that they both have similar aspect patterns to the rest of the chart. While a regular eclipse has an across the board influence, with the Sun, Moon and earth relationship at the full moon given additional voltage that influences things for months ahead, the Venus transit brings an unknown but visually obvious significance to all things Venusian.

Venus/Aphrodite rules love, sensuality, creativity, the erotic arts, attraction and seduction, beauty, adornment and feminine sexuality. Something of this magnitude then will affect our love lives as well as our ability to give and receive love. There are all sorts of links to Mayan prophesy and interpretations on the net ranging from the re-emergence of the sacred feminine to the possibilities of various disasters due to her shadow's tendency to paradoxically create conflict and wars.

The aspects to both the lunar eclipse and the Venus passage do point to conflict with the masculine through a square to her partner Mars and to strong, but not necessarily easy, healing by squaring Chiron in Pisces. It is also, however, a recipe for clearing old masculine/feminine antagonism that hinders the heart's openness and receptivity.

The main game, though, is the union of Venus with the Sun, one of the ultimate unions of the masculine and feminine, a combination so profoundly loving and unifying that we would wonder how it would be possible to live without it once we've had a taste of it. It is an experience that is worth every effort to heal and transform, one that inspired the verses of Rumi, Kabir and Mirabai, as it's as much about the inner union as with the external beloved, whether deity, guru or partner.

Even though the processes of the Uranus/Pluto and that of the Sun/Venus transit are not directly related astrologically, the synchronicity of these events is undeniable and leads me to believe that against the harshness of the former, we have an exceptional event that not only concerns the heart, but one that offers the best of both. I suspect we're being presented with a real possibility of being transformed by love, in the midst of a great death and rebirth.

For an extended version of this article, go to http:// www.sacredlawfirm.com.auDaniel Sowelu (BSc, Dip Ed)is a therapeutic astrologer, primal therapist and groupleader in his 31st year of private practice.